


for you, anything

by castironbaku



Series: Commissions! [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Witches, maruchika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 22:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10795863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castironbaku/pseuds/castironbaku
Summary: Itsuki and Chika. Two witches that've settled down on the edge of a peaceful village. It's taken them years to finally find this one place they call home, and they're not about to let a certain someone destroy it.-commissioned by tenmillionotters!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tenmillionotters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenmillionotters/gifts).



> this is for my beautiful, wonderful steph! this took a while, but it was worth it to make you smile.  
> writing this made me crave to know more about these two...

It was probably an understatement to say that Itsuki absolutely loved the village that Chika had decided for them to settle in, after years of clumsy courtship and gentle, embarrassed touches under moonlit pine. It was a quiet place, with its populace numbering hardly more than three hundred; it was easy to know most everyone and anyone—if not by name, then by face. Neighbors two streets over would bring each other fresh baked apple pie, and the local physician was a name passed around over one or two slices.

The local physician was, of course, Itsuki. He was, to be more accurate, a healing witch—though he could fix far more than just people and animals. He was more or less generous with his services, but he was always strict with his patients. Yes, Alice could start walking in two weeks, no less. No, Rutger couldn’t eat that strawberry cake, it’ll give him rashes. Not even if he _really_ wants to. And for the last time, _no_ , Stephanie wasn’t to run the length of the stream without supervision. Somebody put a leash on her if they must—she’d end up with worse than scrapes if she was left alone.

Best of all, the villagers didn’t mind that Itsuki and Chika were witches. They ooh’ed and aah’ed when Itsuki coaxed a broken wagon axle back into place or when Chika hummed a tune to which the flowers in their garden would sway and dance to, their petals fluttering open and closed as though they were singing along in voices that no one but Chika could hear. There weren’t any pitchfork-and-torch persecutions. Neither of them were ridiculed or mocked. Instead, they were lauded and appreciated, treated with almost affection because of their rarity. It was the kind of peaceful life that Itsuki had, secretly, always wanted and Chika, not so secretly, longed for.

Spring this year was quickly turning mild, and it was time to forgo the heavy winter jackets and gloves. Itsuki was grateful to finally dump the winter wear into the laundry basket. He stretched a little and, from the window, caught a glimpse of Chika wandering the gardens outside, singing the flowers awake after months of being buried beneath the snow.

Above them and their cozy cottage in the far-flung countryside, the sky boasted the softest blue and the remnants of a light shower the night before. Itsuki took his first deep inhale of the season and already he found himself smiling, even as Souta sauntered in and looked up at him with a swish of his tail.

“Good morning to you too,” he said, reaching down to scratch between Souta’s ears, who allowed the display of tenderness with almost pride. If he’d been a person, he would probably be glowing with lazy triumph. He padded, barefoot, to the kitchen, Souta at his heels.

Breakfast was prepared in short order. Itsuki was known for his efficiency at treating wounds (on both living and non-living things), and his dexterity, fortunately, extended to the kitchen. He let Souta have a few tiny nibbles of bacon every so often as he cooked, and Souta made his appreciation of this known by licking Itsuki’s fingers clean.

When arms hooked around Itsuki’s waist from behind, he didn’t even look up. Instead he pushed the bacon onto a plate with a smooth slide of a fork across the sizzling pan. Chika rested his chin against Itsuki’s shoulder and nuzzled into him.

“Good morning,” he said into Itsuki’s neck. 

“I know it is,” replied Itsuki, skillfully going about kitchen duty with a clingy lover bodily attached to him. “Go and sit down—look, you’ve got Souta mad again.”

Souta, true to form, had his back slightly arched, fur bristling. He wasn’t baring his teeth, at least. Not yet anyway. Chika ignored him though. This was the usual exchange between them every morning, and the aggressor was normally the one who failed to make the first move on Itsuki.

“He’s always mad,” he said. “This won’t make a difference.”

“It’ll make a difference when he claws your leg,” Itsuki said jokingly, though Souta let out a sort of low sound that seemed to mean, _He can be damn sure I’ll claw his leg._

“Fine,” Chika relented, releasing Itsuki from his tender hold and moving away to sit at the table. While he waited, he waved a hand and caught his reading spectacles and his thickly bound journal as they drifted toward him. 

“You’re getting better at that,” Itsuki commented as he lay out the plates and utensils. “I barely have to fix any broken vases anymore.”

“It’s easier to get the oak outside to hand me my things than it is to tell them to get up and come to me themselves.”

“Of course it is.”

Chika reviewed his journal as they ate, occasionally lifting his legs out of Souta’s scratching range. Sometimes he would frown—a tiny crease between his brows that Itsuki had learned to smooth out with his lips at the end of a long day—and other times he would hum thoughtfully. He would pause between forkfuls and stare at some words, maybe numbers, that wrote themselves into the pages every day. Itsuki always found himself staring a little too much, but that was okay now. Eight years ago, staring at Chika for more than two seconds had been cause for severe embarrassment, but now it was a luxury he afforded himself every day.

“How is it?” he asked finally, when Chika lowered the journal and took off his spectacles.

“It’s going to be a tough day,” was all Chika said.

“Tonic?” Itsuki asked. 

“Make it two.”

After breakfast, before Itsuki prepared his physician’s tools and Chika set out for the day, Itsuki set up his small iron cauldron and brewed three, not just two, bottles’ worth of tonic and salve for Chika to use. He noted the dwindling supply of ingredients in the cupboards and made a mental note to let Chika know of what else to look for in the woods.

“Stay safe,” he reminded Chika at the little wooden gate a stone’s throw away from their cottage’s front door. “Don’t listen to the birds—you know what happened last time.”

Chika grimaced, remembering when he’d gone missing for three days after wandering paths that only the birds knew. “I’ll be more discerning of the road signs next time.” He leaned in and kissed Itsuki’s lips—something in between gentle and passionate—before squeezing his hand reassuringly as he always did every morning. Then he was walking down the dirt road, turning into the grassy field and vanishing as soon as he stepped foot into the green.

He would spend perhaps two days out there this time, judging from the way he’d scowled at his journal at breakfast. There were more than a few trees that needed waking after a long, harsh winter.

Meanwhile, Itsuki flipped the wooden sign hanging from their door and officially started this warm spring day.


	2. Chapter 2

Souta was generally wary of strangers, though by now he’d seen practically every face there was to see from the village, so now he lay in a non-threatening position on the window sill, the tip of his tail dangling over the edge. He was going about his daily ritual of lazing around in the afternoon while keeping one half-lidded eye on Itsuki as he worked.

Today was as busy as any other day—which was to say, not very at all. He typically had to around five to seven appointments a day, a couple of walk-ins, and he always spared time for a single home visit, if the patient in question was incapable of making their way to the cottage at the edge of the village.

After setting the broken bone of a young straw-haired boy, he murmured a few spells and applied a special, particularly stinky salve that made the boy wrinkle his nose and remark, “Ugh! That smells like my mum’s garden! The poopy part.”

“It should because it’s filled with poop. Griffin poop.”

The boy’s expression turned into one of curious wonder. “Really? A real live griffin?”

Itsuki smirked. “Yes, a real live griffin,” he said, mimicking the boy’s tone. “His name was Malewiebamani and he had a strange obsession with eating mud.”

“Gross!” the boy laughed, less repulsed than amused. “Did he eat rocks too?”

“Oh, he ate wagonloads of them.”

Later, the boy would go home, his broken arm perfectly healed and waving around in excitement as he told her about the griffin that ate rocks and mud for breakfast and whose poo had healed his arm. It was a slight exaggeration of the real story. Malewiebamani was probably no longer a fan of rocks ever since Chika had used a vine to hurl a boulder into his monstrous jaw. But that was years ago and besides, they’d gotten enough griffin feces for salves to last another century. 

He was in the middle of reminiscing the moment when the griffin had taken a rock to the mouth and fallen face first into the muddy sands of Cairo when he saw the young man—about his age in human years—hurrying down the path toward the cottage. He saw this scene in his mind thanks to a magical ward—a security measure he’d cast in a wide radius around their home. By the time the man arrived, breathless, at his door, Itsuki was already standing with a light coat on and gripping the handle on his leather case of potions, salves, bandages, and his omnipresent book of healing spells.

“Doctor… Doctor Marude!” the man called out in between pants. “Please! Come quick! My—My father, he’s…”

Itsuki was opening the door and striding out in an instant. “Take me to him.”

* * *

The walk to the young man’s home was quite long. Long enough for Itsuki to ask the man—Theo, was his name—what was wrong with his father. Theo described the typical symptoms of the common fever, and Itsuki was almost ready to diagnose and treat the problem accordingly.

“There’s something else, doctor,” Theo went on, as they walked briskly across the thoroughfare. 

“What is it?”

“He’s… well… he _glows_.”

“He glows?”

“I—I know it sounds strange,” he said, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as he walked. “But please believe me. I’ll show you.”

Theo’s home was one of the larger ones in the village, rising up to two floors and spanning two rooms in width and immediately upon setting foot in it, Itsuki could sense the apprehension and heavy atmosphere. Something wasn’t right and he knew it before he even saw the first of Theo’s family. A couple of women, presumably Theo’s sisters, were bustling up and down the stairs, weary expressions on their faces. Dark smudges beneath their eyes told Itsuki that they’d been up all night. He followed Theo up the narrow staircase to the second floor. At the end of the hallway, another young woman was just leaving a room and closing the door behind her. When she turned and saw them, she blinked, before letting out a sharp breath, her tense shoulders relaxing.

“Oh, Doctor,” she said, drawing close. He recognized her as Franziska, a demure lady who frequented his services with her friends, usually for severe headaches or aches that Itsuki knew didn’t exist (on account of their shy giggles and the palest blush on their powdered faces). “Thank goodness you’ve come,” Franziska said. There was more than just gratitude in the way she approached him and he knew it. He waved off her attentions.

“Tell me of his condition,” he said, a bit brusquely. Behind him, he heard Theo swallow a laugh as high spots of color appeared on Franziska’s cheeks at the obvious rejection of her advances. He wasn’t a completely heartless brother however, and saved his sister the embarrassment of flailing for an answer when she had just been put off so abruptly.

“He’s just this way,” Theo said, squeezing past both Itsuki and Franziska in the narrow hallway, his back pressed to the wall. The three of them entered the last room with the siblings bringing up front and rear.

The bedroom was dark, save for the slices of afternoon sunlight streaming in from the shuttered windows.There was a sizable dresser carved from dark wood to one side and a handful of paintings hung from all four walls. A threadbare rug lay in the middle of the floor and a basin half-filled with water sat atop it, a white cloth hanging limply from the metal lip. Pushed up against the far right corner of the room was the bed and in it, lying like the dead, was Theo and Franziska’s father.

And in the dying sunlight, it was clear that Theo had not lied when he’d told Itsuki that his father, besides the typical fever chills and aches and pains, glowed.

Itsuki approached the bedside with a calm gait, but his mind was whirring with possibility. He’d only seen human flesh glowing _once_ and that was because Chika had been using magic way beyond what his body could take. He knelt and examined the man’s skin closely.

A faintly pulsating bluish light seemed to come not from the skin itself, but from the blood, muscle, and sinew within. Dark blue veins crisscrossed and latticed across the soft glow. He coaxed the man’s mouth open and saw that the glow was brighter there. When he’d finished the initial physical inspection, he began the metaphysical.

Muttering a spell under his breath, he summoned a small sphere of greenish-white light that drifted a few inches above his hand. Behind him, he heard the siblings murmuring. He raised the sphere over the sleeping man’s chest and slowly, surely, pressed his palm against it. The sphere melted into the man, who shuddered in his sleep. Itsuki kept his palm on the man’s heart, listening.

“What… what is it, doctor?” Franziska said hoarsely. “Have you found…?”

“Hush, Cheska,” Theo said lowly.

“No, it’s alright.” Itsuki withdrew his hand and stood. “I won’t mince words. Your father is suffering from magic poisoning that I haven’t seen in… decades. Pure energy is running through his veins and his body is rejecting it, which is why he’s in pain right now.”

“But… he’s not in danger? He’ll heal, won’t he?” Theo said, eyes pleading.

“I don’t know. Like I said, I haven’t seen this kind of poisoning in years, and the only way to cure it is to cull the flow of magic from the source.”

“Where is the source?” Franziska asked.

“I don’t know,” Itsuki said again, frustrated. He didn’t like not knowing things. “I’ll have to look for it, destroy it, then come back with the antidote to facilitate recovery. For now I’ll give him a potion that should help with the pain and cast a ward for peaceful sleep.”

Theo’s arm wrapped around Franziska’s shoulders, pulling her into him protectively as she fought tears. “Is there anything we can do to help you, Doctor?”

He looked from Theo, then to Franziska, whose face was ashen as her body trembled in her brother’s arms. “I want you all to take care of him,” Itsuki said, “until I come back.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chika was about three dozen steps off the winding forest path when he realized that he was wholly unprepared for what he was facing.

_Ades dum._

The trees spoke Latin, which was evidence enough that were far, far older than any Chika had ever encountered in his travels. There was more than just that, however. The voices, rather than riding the wind to reach him, spoke directly into his mind—almost as if the trees had somehow taken root in his brain. He shook his head, willing away the image of tree roots splitting apart the soft grey flesh inside his skull.

_Hic sumus_. _Ades dum._

It was simple enough to fumble toward a voice in the dark, but this was a voice in his head and a pull—not unlike a magnet—on his body. He didn’t fumble. He knew exactly where to go. Overhead and around him, as he walked, the cacophony of life gradually came to silence. Birds and all manner of wildlife seemed to slowly vanish as tree roots began to grow bigger, trunks thickening, and the canopy stretching higher and higher. Chika felt like he himself had shrunken into a pint-sized being, struggling over arching roots and fitting through gaps between the wooden knots. A faint mist had crept in, blanketing the forest floor. This was the land of ancients and there was no place for any mere mortal here.

_Druidae est…_

_Venit. Salvator._

_Ades dum, salvator._

There were multiple voices now, all of them monotone, none of them betraying any of the emotion their words seemed to have. This was not what unnerved Chika, though. What sent his hairs standing on end was the fact that they called him their savior. Knowing the ancients, their definition of savior was a little… out of date.

The trees beckoned him closer, pulling him in and he knew without looking back that the forest had barred his way out, their branches reaching down and their thick trunks suddenly much closer together than before. Chika’s satchel weighed heavily on his shoulder. He ached to pull it off, to put it down and leave it behind.

He was already at the cusp of the grove when he vaguely noticed the absence of his satchel. It didn’t matter now. A lake, roughly the breadth of three grown human adults, shimmered before him. The mist stopped here, curling against Chika’s feet and some invisible barrier.

_Here_ , the trees said. _Come here._

Chika felt the danger of it, suddenly. A twinge of his spine and a sinking feeling in his gut, he blinked, dazed. He looked down and saw his foot paused mid-step. He was half an inch away from entering the bright grove. When he looked back up again, the most quiet whisper of birdsong drifted from the lake. A way out, it seemed to offer. Warmth, life, contented peace.

“What—do you—want from—me?” It was almost impossible to get the words out. His jaw felt stiff and his mouth formed the question so sluggishly that he almost gave up mid-sentence. The trees seemed baffled, as though he should know the answer to his own question already.

_Tu, salutari nostro._

“You—call me that—but—I don’t—know what I—must do—in order to—save you.”

_Oportet venire_.

“Why?”

_Propero… Hoc autem evacuatur._

“Why are you—fading?”

_Because the wicked one is here_ , the trees said. _He comes, he will destroy us._

Chika would have asked who was coming, but the lake… It was so bright and warm and inviting. Around him and behind him was cold darkness wreathed with a mist that bespoke evil. Who on earth would want to destroy this peaceful, beautiful place? The trees were afraid, and whatever was frightening them was probably monstrous and needed to be stopped before it could hurt anyone else. For this, he needed to step forward and become the savior.

“I will help you,” he said and walked determinedly into the grove.

* * *

Itsuki returned home in a hurry. Souta, who’d been lazing around on the rug in front of the fireplace, jumped up on his feet and made a distressed noise when the door sprang open. Itsuki left his leather case teetering on the edge of the table in the study room and began running his fingers across the spines of books on the shelves.

He pulled some out with his index finger and dropped them into a rucksack. They were tomes—both defensive and offensive—and added to his simple healing and repairing repertoire. He didn’t normally use them these days, not anymore at least, but this was an emergency and the villagers’ lives were at stake.

After leaving Theo’s home, more villagers had spotted and approached him. He’d taken to their homes and seen that no less than two dozen more people had fallen ill to the strange glowing fever. And with every house he visited and every passing hour, the patients had only grown worse, thrashing now, sweating visibly and gnashing their teeth as if caught in something much more terrifying than a simple fever dream.

He knew then, that he needed to hurry. There was no more time to waste.

He set up a scrying bowl and murmured the words to a spell that he hadn’t used since a band of strange men and women set up camp near the village. They’d turned out to be a band of _merchants_ rather than the _clanspeople_ that Itsuki had assumed (and accused) them of being. Chika had been the one to suggest the scrying spell to make sure they weren’t attacking the wrong kind of people.

Now, instead of people, he was searching for a source of magic that was feasting on the life force of the villagers. He struggled with an uneasy feeling—the premonition that he would soon be fighting for his life—and hoped that Chika was safe, wherever he was.

“ _Meow!_ ”

“Not now, Souta, the village is in danger.”

Souta audibly bristled, irritated at being brushed off in favor of the lives of a few hundred humans, but he padded over and sat down by Itsuki’s feet, licking at one paw. Before long though, Itsuki already knew where he had to go and what he had to do. That wasn’t what had him shaking down to his feet in rage though.

The forest had Chika, and Itsuki was going to raze it to the ground if it so much as scratched him with its stupid branches.

“Souta?” Itsuki said, his voice steely and dark with intention. “Want to help me cut down a few trees?”

Souta purred, pleased with the idea of wanton destruction. He meowed as if to say, _Let’s do this._

* * *

_Another one this way comes_.

Chika heard the trees loud and clear. He was one of them now, and fueled them with his power. They, in turn, supplied him with knowledge and clairvoyance he could never have imagined wielding in his entire life. He moved as if born anew and thrumming with energy that no human could ever hope to handle in their frail body. It filled him with confidence, and he loved the warmth and the true peace that it left him with. Something though, felt like it was missing.

“Another one?” he echoed.

_Yes. He also seeks to destroy us._ _We are no longer weak and we can easily repel him._

“I’ll protect you,” he said immediately. “I won’t let any harm come to you.”

The trees were pleased with his answer, but were also perturbed. _We are strong again, now, but this one appears to have multiple intentions._

_He walks brazenly_ , some voices said. _Too much so to be duplicitous._

_Then he is of one mind. He means to kill._

_No, to protect._

“Show me,” said Chika.


	4. Chapter 4

Itsuki ran through the woods with Souta at his heels. For the first and last time, he tugged out the thin chain around his neck and pulled until it snapped. He put on the ring that hung from it and filled it with his magic. It glowed white hot and burned his skin, but immediately, he felt a tug behind his navel, like a fishing hook had caught there and was dragging him forward, off the path and into the foliage. The ring, one that matched Chika’s, was a compass that led one to the other. The spell was strong and could remain within the golden band for centuries. Once used and spent, it would break and dissolve into dust. They’d hoped they would never need it.

Souta moved lithely beside him, picking his way through dead leaves, twigs, rocks, and roots with deadly grace. He was a cat that wasn’t _just_ a cat, and Itsuki hadn’t wanted to call upon his help because normally, once Souta started cutting into an enemy, he wouldn’t stop until they were completely and totally eviscerated. This time, however, was an exception.

Itsuki was burning with anger and worry. He knew that Chika had an incredible soft spot for plants and also pretty much anything that moved. It would’ve been easy to fool him that they were good trees that weren’t trying to absorb the life force of an entire village of people or even him. Getting him to trust them was like handing a four-pound hunk of meat to a pack of starving wolves. They’d tear into him in less than a second.

He picked up the pace, but it frustrated him that he couldn’t go as fast as he’d like. There were too many things to sidestep and jump over. If he didn’t move carefully, he’d twist an ankle.

Finally, the landscape changed and silence fell upon the wood. The sun had already set by this time and the darkness only added to the eeriness of a deathly quiet forest with the tallest, most massive trees that Itsuki had ever seen. He summoned light into his ringless hand and forged onward.

He reached the grove in a matter of minutes. The faux sunshine and gentle warmth that greeted him was so incongruous with the direness of the situation that he almost couldn’t bear it. He wanted to march right in there and start a firestorm. But he couldn’t do that because 1) it endangered Chika’s life and 2) he didn’t know how to do fire magic, or any elemental magic whatsoever.

So instead he settled for hunkering down and setting up his defensive wards in case the trees tried anything funny or murderous. Trees were usually one or the other without much leeway in between.

“Itsuki!”

He nearly dropped his rucksack at the sound of Chika’s voice. Itsuki scrambled up on his feet and threw his arms around him. “Chika,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “Chika, thank the gods you’re alright.”

Nearby, Souta hadn’t hissed or tried to attack Chika on sight, and that was already cause for delight.

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” Chika laughed. “I’m more worried about _you._ ”

“Me? I’m not the one held captive by thousand-year old trees who’ve been trying to kill off innocent villagers.”

Chika’s expression darkened. “It’s not them.”

“It’s… not?” Itsuki felt his rage falter, but not in intensity, only in direction. “Then who? I couldn’t find anything of nearly enough magical presence to do this kind of thing.”

“They call him the ‘wicked one,’” said Chika. “He’s been hunting them down for years. They’ve been moving the grove from place to place to keep from being found, but they’ve exhausted their strength. This sickness that’s been released on the villagers was meant to draw them out.”

“They’re… good old trees?”

“You make it sound like all old trees mean to steal lives.”

“No, sorry. I was under the impression that old things tend to be a bit… senile.”

Chika huffed a laugh. “They didn’t like that.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t. Sorry,” Itsuki added in a holler over Chika’s shoulder. “Alright, so if they’re not the villainous trees I thought they were, then who _is_ the real villain here?”

“I am.”

They turned to the new voice and Itsuki felt his jaw drop. Souta’s back was arched high, his hairs all bristling. He bared his fangs and hissed viciously at the new arrival.

“ _Kanou_?” Itsuki sputtered. “The devil are _you_ doing here?”

“He came to take the grove’s power for himself,” Chika said coolly. It took barely a glance to know that he was furious, but to anyone else, he might have looked almost unconcerned. His was a cold stare that could kill, but so was Kanou’s. Only Itsuki wore his shock and fury on his sleeve, but it took only a moment to school his features into some semblance of calm.

“You exaggerate,” Kanou said, only a stone’s throw away, just within reach of the light that emanated from the grove. “I’m only here to… study the grove and its extraordinary powers. It would be of great use to me if you both step aside and allow me to sate my academic curiosity.”

“I thought you were one of us,” said Itsuki, disgusted. “You said you wanted to heal people.”

“And I do.”

“Then _why_ did you unleash magic on the villagers? You could kill them!”

“A few human lives for the prosperity of a race more powerful than them is a small price to pay.

Itsuki opened his mouth to spit more words of fire and brimstone but Chika placed a hand on his shoulder, gripping tightly. “Nothing will convince him,” Chika said quietly. “He’s chased the grove across the globe and for more than three centuries. He won’t stop until it’s his.”

“Then we have to kill him,” said Itsuki. “To save the village… and the trees.”

 

To that, Chika nodded grimly. “I have a plan.”

Itsuki felt himself smile. “Of course you do.”

Chika’s plan involved letting Kanou pass unimpeded into the grove. If any other man had made the plan, Itsuki would’ve balked and made his own plan right off the bat, but this was Chika and everything he did rang of brilliance.

“You two are allies of the academe, remember that,” said Kanou, as he strode past them. Though he seemed relaxed, he was clearly wary of an attack from behind. Itsuki could tell.

As soon as he entered the grove and basked in the unnatural light, he lost all sense of precaution. He’d been waiting for this moment for centuries and it was obvious from the way he spread his arms and reveled in his supposed victory, greedily drinking it all in like it was the best alcohol on earth. He’d never come close, and now he was right in the middle of it all. He was addicted to the sense of triumph and that was going to be his downfall.

It took him a few moments to realize that the lake had begun to flood, the water rising up to soak the soles of his shoes and stopping just short of Itsuki and Chika. His wide grin faded into a snarl baring teeth.

“ _You_ ,” he growled at Chika and Itsuki. “ _What have you done?_ ”

“I’m one of them now,” said Chika, completely placid save for the fire in his eyes. “What I have, they have. You were doomed the moment you thought you could win against them.”

“Impossible. You… You’re just a _witch_.”

Chika lifted an eyebrow. “And what are you supposed to be?”

Kanou sneered, his handsome face marred by the expression of pure contempt. “I am a _god_.”

“Cocky bastard,” Itsuki spat.

From within the boundaries of the grove, Kanou unleashed a flurry of electrical bolts and explosive spells. Though the ground shuddered with every impact, the trees remained undamaged and the lake continued to rise. It was at Kanou’s knees now and he had to stop using electricity unless he wanted to electrocute himself.

“As I’ve said,” Chika said loudly. “What I have, they have.” Beside him, Itsuki was breathing slowly, concentrating on maintaining and adding defensive wards on Chika, which through his otherworldly bond with the ancient trees, transferred over to them. Souta stood at Chika’s feet, wrapping himself around one of his legs, and offering his own magic—however much—to him.

“ _I’ll destroy you both_ ,” Kanou screamed as he continued to rain fire upon the trees in vain. “ _I’ll kill you slowly, pick you apart bone by bone, and trap your souls in the underworld._ ”

They watched as the liquid light consumed him whole and he struggled to float, but couldn’t—the lake wasn’t an ordinary one that would allow him to buoy to the surface. Instead he stayed in place, submerged, and began to writhe as he fought to hold his breath. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and if Itsuki didn’t know any better, he might have thought Kanou was pleading with them to spare him.

Then it was over and Kanou’s body was limp. The lake began to recede and strangely, magically, when Itsuki and Chika stepped into the grove, everything—even Kanou—was dry.

“Well,” Itsuki said as he nudged the corpse with the tip of his shoe, “that takes care of the magic source. I’ll have to brew a new batch of healing antidotes with some of his blood when we get back, though.”

“You’re a hero, Itsuki,” Chika said warmly, taking his hands and pressing his mouth against the palms. “Without you, the trees _and_ the village would have been destroyed. And who knows what else, if Kanou had taken control of the power here.”

Souta meowed loudly, his head tilted indignantly, as though demanding his share of the praise. Chika bent down and scratched him behind the ears, like Itsuki had always told him to try. “And of course there’s you,” he said. “You brave cat, you.” Souta preened and purred under the praise and rubbed his head against Chika’s hand in a rare gesture of affection.

Meanwhile, Itsuki was blushing furiously. He still wasn’t used to Chika’s compliments. They were like drops of pure sunshine, like glimpses of the lake that lay at the heart of a grove of ancient trees. There was something making his heart flutter in his chest, and he wondered if it was the trees’ doing. When Chika kissed him, he felt like he was made of air, floating up and up and away. 

_Te amo magis quad erat, Itsuki_.

The voice wasn’t just Chika. It was every tree, resounding with so much affection that Itsuki couldn’t take it. It was all too embarrassing. He gently pushed Chika away and muttered, “I… um… The ring broke.”

“I know,” Chika said softly, bringing the ring-bearing hand up and kissing the burnt flesh where the ring used to be. “Let’s make new ones later.”

Itsuki found himself smiling. “I dare you to find enough material for that again. Are you prepared to scale a roc’s nest?”

“For you,” Chika laughed, “anything.”


	5. epilogue

“… And that’s how we saved the day and got to see the dancing trees go home,” Itsuki finished with a flourish and all the children that’d come in to listen (with various made-up diseases) applauded enthusiastically.

“Doctor Maru, is it true that griffins eat poo?” one boy piped up.

“No they don’t, stupid,” snapped another boy—the one with a broken arm that Itsuki had treated a week ago. “They eat _rocks_.”

“Rocks and mud,” Itsuki corrected and the children burst into another wave of questions and laughter.

“What about dragons, Doc?”

“And giants!”

“Have you met princesses?” one girl asked meekly. “Are they really as pretty as the books say?”

“One question at a time,” Itsuki tried to say sternly, though his smile was threatening to split his face in two.

Finally, after an hour of intense interrogation and storytelling, he was able to send them on their way home, hopefully cured of their supposed “cheesophobia” and “broken brains.” He yelled at them to watch the roads for horses and they’d laughed and yelled back that they would. When he closed the door behind himself, Chika was leaning against the threshold of the bedroom, his thin white shirt loosely laced at the front and revealing a tasteful amount of skin.

“You’re rather popular,” he said, smiling fondly.

“It’s hard-won.”

“With storytelling skills like that? No. It was no chore to get those kids to like you.”

“Maybe.” Itsuki laced his fingers with Chika’s and admired their new matching rings, glinting in the late morning sunlight. Then his lips curled into a smirk. “Why so interested? Are you jealous? Want me to spin you a tall tale as well?”

Chika eyed him, humor twinkling in his eyes. “I’d like to know the story of how you fell in love with me,” he said.

Itsuki rolled his eyes. “That isn’t a tall tale, you idiot. It’s written fact. Just because you could speak Latin for all of five minutes—Oh, stop smiling and get over yourself. Look, even Souta’s fed up with your sappy talk.”

Souta was watching them from his favorite spot at the window and made a point of opening his mouth wide and yawning before settling down for a nap. He was clearly less than interested in their romantic escapades today.

“He’s always fed up with my sappy talk,” murmured Chika as he kissed Itsuki on his forehead, his nose, and then his lips, lingering there. “This shouldn’t make a difference.”

“No,” said Itsuki, hooking his arms around Chika’s neck. “Not at all.”


End file.
